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Kaminari Denki is hot .
For one, he’s attractive. He’s not hella toned but he’s got some muscles, at least! (It’s just, other people don’t really see him for the snack that he is. But that’s on them, and it's no fault of his) And he’s been told that his hair is nice, and Kirishima says that he has a good style - granted, Kirishima’s taste is… questionable, but Kaminari will take the compliment.
Second, his quirk is electricity. His body generates it like nobody’s business; it runs through his veins and his organs like a second lifeblood. If it gets too built up, it overheats like a computer. Kaminari’s body temperature is ten degrees higher than the average person’s, which freaked out the doctors when he was a child, before they realized that his quirk had come in. During battle, it spikes even more, until it feels like his skin is steaming like a fried egg (damn, Kaminari could really go for a fried egg now. He wonders if he can convince Bakugou to make him any). If his quirk didn’t fry his brain, and Kaminari continued to use it until he physically couldn’t anymore, he thinks that he might begin to fry himself. Like an egg. An Eggainari.
Essentially? At any time, Kaminari is warmer than everyone else.
It’s why his costume has sleeves, even during the summer, and why he has an extra thick jacket during the winter; he always runs warmer than the outside temperature, and gets cold in comparison too easily. It’s why summer is his favorite season, no question, because it’s the only time he can run around with short sleeves on and not feel like his fingers are going to fall off. It’s why he sleeps with a heated blanket all year round, the plug stuffed into his mouth like a pacifier, a run off for the extra electricity that he produces throughout the night.
It’s not too bad. Kaminari has lived with it for so long that he no longer registers it as weird, just another one of the numerous side effects to his quirk.
It’s just - everything is so cold in comparison.
The world is made for the average human, the one that remains in the high nineties in temperature and since Kaminari runs hotter than that, everything’s freezing.
Even other people.
Which sucks! Denki is a people person. He thrives on attention and affection, whether it be verbal or physical. His whole family is like that, except for his one sister who’s too much of an introvert and only likes to take cuddles from her partner which is weird , because the physical affection trait definitely runs in his family - but hey, some people are just like that. It’s whatever. Essentially: his family, with all their electric quirks, run warm . Denki is used to cuddling people who feel like hot water bottles, not ice packs left in a tub of liquid nitrogen. Kaminari is missing his cuddles; he is bereft , empty, hollow, like someone carved his soul out without his usual cuddle sessions with his siblings.
He loves his classmates, don’t get him wrong. Kirishima is big and buff, but doesn’t have so many muscles that he’s uncomfortable to lie upon; he’d be the perfect buddy if he wasn’t so cold. Sero is bony but at least he’s tall, so he works fine for a big spoon or just a hug, but again: freezing . Ashido is great, but she (a) squirms too much and (b) feels like a straight up ice pack is being slapped against his face. Plus her horns almost stabbed his eye out once! It was bleeding and everything. (He swears he has a little scar over his eye to match Kirishima, but Bakugou always tells him that he’s being too “dramatic”. Dramatic. As if! Ridiculous)
He’s even drifted outside of the self-proclaimed Bakusquad in search of cuddles. Jirou is fine, but she always gets so tense when they lean up against each other, and she’s always with Yaomomo anyway. Denki even asked Yaomomo herself once, but she was too proper... or something, he kinda zoned out during her explanation and forgot everything she said. He knew it was a long shot anyways.
Kaminari even became so desperate as to ask Todoroki Shouto himself, who blinked at him in a confused manner but let Denki curl up into his side one movie night. That was, surprisingly, a total bust. Well, first Denki sat on his ice side, which he’s not sure how he did because Todoroki is literally color coded like Bakugou’s notes or Tokoyami’s closet (black, lighter black, darkest blacks; yeah, Kaminari isn’t sure how that works either), but it turns out that his two conflicting quirks cancel out the warmth of the fire. He felt like a stale water bottle that had been left out in a classroom, forgotten, for like three weeks. A sad, pathetic water bottle.
Safe to say, Class 1-A is terrible in terms of potential cuddle partners.
And Denki doesn’t go home that often. For one, UA is rather strict about it, considering that the whole reason they were moved into the dorms in the first place was because the villains in Japan have, like, a straight up addiction with attacking just his class. Kaminari doesn’t want to put his family in danger. And he likes his friends at school, wants to hang out with them at a time that’s not in classes or collapsed dead on the couch after an exhausting training session or while he’s crying over homework that he can’t understand.
And he’s - he’s touch starved, okay? He’ll admit it! He’s not ashamed! You can’t shame the shameless! Kaminari Denki is pathetically, tragically touch starved and he’s going to get his goddamn cuddles if it’s the last thing he does.
Which means he has to exhaust his last and only option: Bakugou.
Let it be known, right here, right now, that Kaminari has shit self-preservation skills. Not so much during battle, when the fear of losing your life has actually set in and you can see your demise right in front of you, but when it comes to actions that produce punishment much later, Kaminari keeps the mindset of ‘yolo’. He needs instant gratification, you know? And, well, instant punishment as well, in order to get himself to stop making stupid decisions.
So, yes, Kirishima, he knows that this is kind of a terrible idea that will probably end up with an explosion to the face and no Bakugou food for the rest of the month, but he’s desperate enough to try it. Bakugou’s probably warm, right? He creates explosions; those make heat! Thermal energy or something, Denki doesn’t get physics class. (Or is that for friction? He’s not sure) Anyway, the gist of the matter is this: Bakugou = warm. Kaminari = also warm. Warmth = good cuddles. Transitive property of equality: Bakugou Kaminari = good cuddles.
Plus, Denki has a plan . That’s right; he can do strategy. Bakugou is loud and threatening and violent but he’s also very predictable and Kaminari has a pretty good understanding of his character, if he does say so himself. With Bakugou, there are two ways to make him do something: challenge him, or act so pathetic that he gets annoyed and caves in.
As you can guess, Kaminari is pretty good at the latter.
(And don’t tell Bakugou this, but Denki is pretty sure he’s gotten softer recently. Kaminari begged him to make food the other day, and he actually did . In first year, he probably would have blasted an explosion in Kaminari’s face and told him he could have “charred idiot” for dinner! Character development is real, people)
Kaminari decides to pounce after movie night that Friday, when Bakugou is awake past his usual bedtime and is already tired. He’s sprawled out over an entire couch, because he is a selfish creature, one leg hanging off the side and eyes half-lidded. He looks soft and sleepy and Kaminari really just wants to curl up on his chest.
But he doesn’t want to scare Bakugou. So instead, he just flops down in the space between Bakugou’s leg and the rest of the couch, smushing him into the cushions. It’s an experiment, or whatever. Just to make sure that he’s actually as warm as Denki hypothesized.
Bakugou peers at him from the other end of the couch. “Sparky,” he says in warning, but makes no effort to kick Kaminari off. Instead, he slowly shifts his attention back to his phone, every now and again glancing over. No wonder he goes to sleep so early most nights; he gets mellow . Kaminari has seen this before, but he’s always shocked every time he experiences the wonder that is Calm Bakugou.
“M’cold,” Kaminari says. He stares at Bakugou expectantly.
“Get a blanket, Dunce Face,” Bakugou retorts. “Or are you too stupid to do even that?”
“But I don’t want to get a blanket,” Denki argues. “I’d have to go all the way upstairs to my room. Do you know how far away that is? Do you know how much effort I would have to put into doing that? It’s too much! It’s practically a migration! Do I look like a monarch butterfly to you, Blasty?”
“When you become a hero you’ll be doing way more physical exercise than that,” Bakugou growls. He puts his phone down to glare imperiously.
“But I’m not a hero now!” Kaminari cries.
“Stop being lazy! If you don’t want to get yourself a blanket, or a hoodie, or something, then don’t complain!” Bakugou frees his leg from its trapped confines between Denki and the couch, and then proceeds to weaponize it, shoving it into Denki’s side. “And what do you expect me to do about it, anyway? Start a fucking fire in the middle of the common room?”
“But Kacchan ,” Kaminari whines.
“No.”
“ Kacchan ,” he repeats.
“Shut up , fuck you.”
“I mean, if you want to,” Denki says immediately. He flops forward on Bakugou’s chest. “Kacchan, I’m still cold.”
“Pikachu, Frog-Face is literally in the other room wearing a t-shirt. It’s not fucking cold.” Bakugou sighs. “What do you actually want.”
“Cuddles?” Kaminari whines, giving Bakugou his best puppy dog eyes and pushing out his bottom lip in a pout.
“What the hell?” Bakugou yells, finally waking up and reacting the way that Kaminari had predicted he would. He jerks up, half-throwing Denki off the edge of the couch, and splutters, face red enough to look like Kirishima the one time he let Denki attempt to dye his hair (the bathroom looked like a murder scene. Everyone involved looked like the victims. Kirishima argued that he really was a victim. He did not invite Denki to dye his hair again).
“It’s not that weird, dude! I know you have your whole tsundere thing going on but c’mon, you couldn’t try it just once? For me?”
“What makes you think I would be more likely to do it for you, Dunce Face?” Bakugou crosses his arms.
“Please? Please ? Bakubro, c’mon!” Kaminari wraps his arms around Bakugou’s torso in an imitation of a koala.
“ No , fuck off,” Bakugou complains, shoving Kaminari away.
“I’m not moving,” Denki says triumphantly. “You’re gunna have to knock me out to get me to move.”
“Wouldn’t be very hard.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Whatever. Fine, idiot, maybe being in close proximity to me will boost the growth of your limited number of brain cells. God knows you need more.” Bakugou finally seems to give up, leaning back onto the couch with a sigh as he picks up his phone from where it fell into a crack between the cushions. And he calls Denki overdramatic. Goddamn hypocrite.
They lay in silence for what feels like an eternity. The clock says that it is thirty seconds. The clock is probably lying. Either way, doing nothing makes Denki bored, and a bored Denki runs his mouth. He probably shouldn’t push it, especially now that he’s gotten his prized position on Bakugou’s chest, but, well, it’s already been established that Kaminari has little to no self-preservation skills.
“You’re really warm, Kacchan,” he says.
Bakugou grunts. He drops his phone on Kaminari’s face. “Now what do you want.”
“What?” Laughter. “I’m just complimenting you, Blasty! Don’t be so quick to explode at me. You’re warm! It’s nice. Sero’s, like, fifteen degrees below freezing. Every time I even go near him it’s like the sun’s been blotted out and will never return.”
“I can’t stand you,” Bakugou says very seriously, but Kaminari knows he really adores him. He’s a terrible liar. His ears go red.
“You let me cuddle you, though,” Denki says cheekily. He rolls over so he’s half sprawled across Bakugou, now less at risk of falling off the couch into the unknown depths of the Class 1-A dorm floor (because if he’s being honest, those probably shouldn’t be allowed within a mile of any living creature. They should be burned for the safety of the human race. Sure, they try to clean, but it’s a house filled with hormonal teenagers with destructive superpowers and way too many prank ideas. Who knows what’s been absorbed into the carpet).
Bakugou’s ears go even more red. He shoves his palm into Kaminari’s face, covering his eyes and squishing his nose, growling under his breath. “Yeah, don’t push your luck, idiot. We both know this is never going to happen again.”
-
Except that it totally does . Kaminari Denki, electric extraordinaire, has a certified, living, breathing, surprisingly reliable cuddle buddy in the form of one Bakugou Katsuki. He has no idea how he’s achieved this, but Kirishima owes him so much money that he’s practically moved up to the top 1% and he’s not going to have to do his laundry for five foreseeable months (via Sero).
It starts off smaller. After the first time, Kaminari becomes more daring, latching on to Bakugou when given the opportunity, and somehow isn’t shoved away. He can steal an arm during homework or put his legs into Bakugou’s lap on movie nights and he doesn’t say anything (unless it’s during hero training. And, well, he does say some things, but it’s way less threatening than it normally is. And he only sends threatening sparks Kaminari’s way, not full on explosions, which, in Bakugou language, is essentially perfect agreement).
Once Kaminari has learned what he can get away with, he decides to push his luck even more, because why the hell not, you know? He starts tackling Bakugou with hugs, playing with his hair if he’s bored (alternating between petting him and yanking at random strands in order to annoy him, which usually ends badly for Kaminari and satisfyingly for Bakugou, but at least it’s funny. And only causes property damage half of the time). One time he even manages to get Bakugou to agree to take a nap with him, in his bed , and it’s the best damn sleep he’s had in his entire life, he’ll swear his prized Pikachu card collection on it.
And suddenly it’s just… normal. Their classmates stop giving them weird looks when they find them sprawled out together on the couch or learning against each other on the ride home from missions or latched onto each other (well, Kaminari onto Bakugou, let’s not exaggerate here) when they’re doing homework or cooking (well, Bakugou cooking; again, no exaggerations in this household). They start to have weekly sleepovers. Kirishima finally learns to stop taking bets against Denki because Bakugou always says yes . Kaminari stops being so touch-starved and finds himself much calmer, finds sitting still for longer periods of time and being able to focus on his work much easier when he has Bakugou there.
It’s when Kaminari has woken up at three in the morning, hungry, in Bakugou’s bed, and doesn’t hesitate to wake him up in hopes of begging a meal out of him in a way that would have gotten him absolutely demolished in first year that he realizes, hey, there might be something more going on here.
“Kacchan,” Kaminari says, poking at Bakugou’s side. “Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan.”
“What the fuck, Sparky?” Bakugou grumbles. His words are only half-intelligible because his face is buried in Denki’s hair. He shifts a little, probably to get a glimpse of the clock on his bedside table. “Idiot, it’s three in the morning.”
“I’m hungry,” Kaminari pouts.
“And what the hell do you expect me to do about that?” Bakugou says.
“Make me something?” Kaminari asks hopefully. He tilts his head up a little to give Bakugou his best puppy dog eyes.
“Absolutely not,” Bakugou says. He rolls over, taking Kaminari with him until he’s being smothered into the bed, crushed under the weight of an angry blond kid and his five blankets (all of which are fluffy, because Bakugou is adorable like that).
“But Blastyyyy,” Kaminari complains. “I’m hungry!”
Bakugou sighs. He flops over onto his back, making sure Denki can see his stink eye. “You’re not going to shut up if you don’t get what you want, are you.”
Kaminai beams at him. “Of course not!”
“Fine. Whatever.” Bakugou sits up and slowly clambers out of the bed, rubbing at his eyes. “Wait here, dumbass.”
Immediately, the temperature drops a few degrees. “Noooo,” Kaminari complains. “It’s not warm anymore!”
“Well what the fuck do you want me to do?” Bakugou demands. He waves a hand around, sparks going off in his palms. “Do you want food or do you want to go back to sleep? I can’t clone myself, asshole!”
“Hmmm.” Kaminari has to think about it for a minute. Finally, he grabs one of the fluffy blankets and wraps it around himself, and then proceeds to copy that motion onto Bakugou. He latches onto Bakugou’s shoulders, curling into his back, and follows him to the elevator and down to the kitchen. Bakugou, perhaps because he’s too tired to protest otherwise, says nothing, just heaves another sigh and lets him.
In the kitchen, Kaminari continues to impersonate a koala as Bakugou whips up some quick noodles. They both nearly fall asleep standing up as they wait for the water to boil, until it almost bubbles over and Bakugou nearly wakes up the whole campus with his cursing (first of the stove, then the pot, then the water, and finally Denki). Then Kaminari is pretty sure he actually does wake someone up as he scolds him for almost knocking the bottle of pre-made soup base off the counter.
“Here, idiot,” Bakugou says, finally setting down a bowl in front of Kaminari after having banished him to the table. He sits next to him, lets Kaminari duck under his arm, and takes the blanket to wrap around both of their shoulders.
“Thanks, Blasty,” Kaminari says cheekily. Bakugou smacks him (gently).
It’s quiet as he eats, finally warm in the kitchen, the moon shining in through the window and casting cool highlights across the floor. Denki thinks Bakugou’s fallen back asleep until he feels a pressure at his chin and turns to see Bakugou Katsuki, Class 1-A’s resident hothead and tsundere, wiping spilled liquid off of Kaminari Denki’s chin . Bakugou Katsuki. Being soft!!
“Oh my god,” Kaminari says.
“What now?” Bakugou glares again, but the effect is mitigated because he’s just so soft in the warm lighting of the stove, hair mussed and eyes still half-closed. “I’m not making you any more food, if that’s what you’re asking me for. You need to get onto a normal eating schedule. I’m only doing this now because you skipped dinner like an absolute moron. Don’t get used to this, or I’ll -”
“Bakugou.” Kaminari waits a second, just for dramatic effect. “Are we dating? ”
“The fuck?” Bakugou grunts. He snatches Kaminari’s chopsticks from him and collects a huge bite of noodles, and then, when Denki’s mouth opens to say something else, shoves the whole thing in. “Shut your trap, idiot. It’s too early to deal with your stupidity.” But his ears are so red. It’s the cutest thing Kaminari has ever seen.
Kaminari has to chew, but once he can get his mouth open again, he says, a noodle dropping into his lap, “Oh my god. That’s totally a yes, isn’t it? We’re dating. Oh shit. Oh, god. I'm never going to hear the end of this from Kirishima. Or Mina . She’s gunna eviscerate me. You’re gunna have to protect me, Blasty. It’s your sacred boyfriend duty now!”
“You’re actually the dumbest fuck I know,” Bakugou says, but he sounds resigned and Kaminari must be seeing things but is that a look of fondness on his face?
“Dumbest boyfriend you know, you mean!” Denki crows.
“ Only boyfriend I know,” Bakugou snaps. He wacks Kaminari over the head. “Finish your noodles. I want to go back to bed.”